Lyndon B. Johnson in his commencement address to Howard University in 1965 powerfully stated, “You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say you are free to compete with all the others, and still just believe that you have been completely fair."

Howard University, a historically African-American University, was the recipient of these powerful words. Affirmative Action is the program that closes the gap left by the racial oppression of African Americans and Latinos throughout the history of the United States. This quote by Lyndon B. Johnson should be the standard by which Affirmative Action goes by today.

Unfortunately, Affirmative Action which once had a powerful influence of giving students from rough upbringings an equal chance has failed to shift to the current demographic today. Affirmative Action is in need of reform and while there should still be an emphasis on race, it should hold an emphasis on economic status as well.

Affirmative Action policies are a way of ensuring a representation of African Americans and Latinos at Universities and in the workforce. Universities give these students sometimes as much as a full point on their GPA as well as boosts on other qualifications in order to see the number of minority students rise on their campuses.

Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor jr. address in their article “Keep Affirmative Action but Reform it” that recent and slowly growing research is starting to show that these racial preferences that are prevalent in the selection process of admissions are sabotaging the same goals that they are meant to encourage. This is because the selection process does a poor job of matching these students to the Universities that they are most likely to find success at.

For instance, Sander and Taylor give an example of “A student who would do extremely well at Wake Forest ends up at struggling at Duke; a student who would thrive at a strong state university gets recruited away to the Ivy League and becomes a marginal student.” A student can qualify too high compared to their actual credentials because of a boost, therefore, placing them somewhere that they don’t belong.

Affirmative Action as we know it today has failed. Len Mandelbaum writes in his article about Affirmative Action reform, “Thirty-six years after President John F. Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925 and 32 years after the construction trades' goals-timetables programs, more than 40 percent of black youth are unemployed.”

The intentions of Affirmative Action were to destroy discrimination, however, the racial preferences in admissions and the workforce have promoted discrimination. African American and Latino students that are admitted into college with lesser qualifications are sometimes hurt with this program. They are placed into positions that they are not ready for and put into a position to fail. Instead, colleges should admit based off of a mix of merit, race, and level of disadvantage.

The main purpose of Affirmative Action was to close a gap in college admissions and in job opportunities created by racial oppression. A big problem with affirmative action, even from the beginning, is that it hurts the same exact people it intended to benefit.

The people that it hurts are Latinos and African Americans who now carry a stereotype of a student who didn’t have the qualifications but reaped the benefits of a program that allows lesser qualified students of a minority race to attend college. This hurts these students because a lot of them didn’t even need affirmative action in the first place to attend a university, and now they’re seen by some of their classmates as one who did. This leads to accomplishments by elite students being discredited because students are inaccurately labeled by their peers.

Affirmative Action does give African American and Latino students a better chance at attending college and in a lot of circumstances, this is ok. This is because the poverty rate for African Americans is 24.1% and the poverty rate for Latinos is close behind at 21.4%. These are relatively large numbers compared to that of whites which is 9.1%.

With less access to resources for education and a rugged upbringing, it is harder for these students to do well in school so Affirmative Action does benefit these students. Students who don’t live below this poverty line, however, have an unfair advantage in admissions.

Affirmative Action benefits the middle and upper class of African Americans and fails the lower class of every other race. The lower class is at a disadvantage because they lack the resources necessary to succeed in their education. Yes, the lower class tends to carry higher percentages of African Americans and Latinos, however, these are not the only races that can make up the lower class. All students can benefit from a socially diverse class, however, there needs to be a change in admission policy that combines race with economic disadvantage in order to ensure that these students can succeed.

When a minority student of a middle to upper-class family is accepted with fewer credentials over a white student, that minority student is put into a position to fail. This is because the student has been at less of a disadvantage during their life than the impoverished student in regards to education and disregarding race.

David Sacks in his article, "The Case Against Affirmative Action" stated, “why should the under-qualified son of a black doctor displace the qualified daughter of a Vietnamese boat refugee?”

The last issue that is present with Affirmative Action is that it leaves out a group that has also been discriminated in the past, Asian Americans. Asian Americans are not only left out of Affirmative Action, there is also evidence to back up that they are actually at a disadvantage in admissions even over white students. There is no regard for race for Asian Americans in admissions so unfortunately there is an unconscious bias by universities. Asian Americans are at a remarkable disadvantage to African American and Latino students in terms of SAT scores.

According to Andrew Lam in his article “White Students Unfair Advantage in Admissions” “A 2009 Princeton study showed Asian-Americans had to score 140 points higher on their SATs than whites, 270 points higher than Hispanics and 450 points higher than blacks to have the same chance of admission to leading universities.”

There are two problems that were in the Princeton study. The first is the huge disadvantage that Asian Americans have when applying to the same University as an African American or Latino student. This is a problem but still understandable considering African Americans and Latinos are a part of Affirmative Action.

The biggest problem with this study is the fact that on average an Asian American student had to score 140 points higher on their SAT than a white student. This shows that there is an unconscious bias in admissions because white students are accepted with fewer credentials and aren’t even a part of the Affirmative Action program.

Andrew Lam also cites to “yellow peril” scares, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II as evidence towards this discrimination against Asian Americans and as a reason they should be included in Affirmative Action.

The questions that need to be asked today is whether there is still a need for affirmative action, and why there is still a need for it.The issue of Affirmative Action needs to be solved from the ground up. There are certain programs that Affirmative Action should coincide with, one of them being Upward Bound.

Upward Bound is a program that helps students in preparing for college. It is intended to help students with their precollege performance which can ultimately translate to acceptance to college. The program serves high schools students from low-income backgrounds and high school students from a family where neither parent has a bachelor’s degree.

The main goal of Upward Bound is to help students get into college and help them be prepared for it when they are admitted and enrolled. If Affirmative Action could take these same fundamentals ideals as Upward Bound, and apply it to students based on disadvantage, we can see an elimination of problems with Affirmative Action today. Affirmative Action will no longer be necessary at the next level if the issue is tackled from the beginning.

Much like in Lyndon B. Johnson’s speech to Howard University a person growing up at a disadvantage should not be expected to compete at the same level as the others in the race. Affirmative Action had the right intentions to begin but slowly as it helped the disadvantaged in race, it hurt the disadvantaged in wealth. It needs to benefit students on a scale of disadvantage on all levels, not just race and eventually, we might live in a world where all runners in the race are equal.